Normally he would have responded in a second. But he was in the wrong headspace. He walked among the other graves and saw a new headstone like Matty’s.
NINA LOPEZ, it said, with the dates. CHILD OF GOD NOW.
So they were united, in a way, he and Andrea Lopez. He hadn’t realized Nina was here. He stood staring at the tombstone for as long as he had stared at his own son’s.
He was at a loss. He rang Jordan Callintree, who picked up straightaway. The officer’s voice had a heaviness to it, a series of words that sounded like one long sigh. ‘Are you about to tell me you’ve found all the stuff we didn’t?’
Should he mention the madness at the Boyds’ place? What had she said – ‘He won’t let me go!’, when he was not even touching her? What if they only wanted to warn him, to scare him off, but they did not know their own strength?
‘Are you there?’ asked Callintree.
‘Sorry,’ said Edward. ‘A lot going on at this end. I’m guessing you talked to the lady with dementia at the estate.’
‘My officers have interviewed her, yes,’ he said, ‘and I’m pretty sure they got nowhere.’
‘We’re just looking at different things.’
‘Progress?’
‘Confusion.’
‘Maybe I’ve been too hard on my officers.’
‘Look, I wanted to speak to Andrea Lopez.’
‘Ah. Now that really is tricky.’
‘I don’t think she’d mind if someone gave me her number. I was at the funeral. I’ve just discovered her daughter is buried near my son.’
Callintree was silent at the other end for a moment. ‘That’s heavy. Is it genuinely a call she’d want to get?’
‘I can’t answer that either way,’ said Edward, never taking his eyes off Nina’s tombstone.
‘Um, let me think about it. I’ll send you the number in five minutes if I decide it’s okay.’
Edward stood in the graveyard, waiting. Eventually, there was a buzzing and he looked at his phone. There was a number, and the text:
This didn’t come from me.
The phone rang several times, then was picked up. The receiver was fumbled for a moment.
‘Hello?’
‘Mrs Lopez?’
Silence.
‘It’s Edward Temmis, from the radio station.’
She sounded drunk when she spoke, but then he wondered if she was sedated. ‘How nice of you … to call.’
‘I lost a child too,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m at my son’s grave, in Topsham. Nina is here.’
Silence.
‘Please don’t speak if it’s too much.’
He pictured her in bed, adrift in grief, because he heard a rustling sound that could have been blankets. ‘You were at Nina’s funeral, Mr Temmis. You gave us more information through the radio than the police did. The police didn’t. Even. Damn. Invest-ti-gate.’ The staccato delivery was rage, controlled, but only just. ‘They closed the case.’
